This came today. The famous Pascal 3 in 1 board plus piggyback sound card...
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This replaces all 4 of the original boards - voltage, mpu, sound and driver.
The board had inscribed on it what each pin of each connector does, which was extremely handy when diagnosing my switch matrix problem.
Mucked about for a while with a dead switch column. There were only 4 "switches" and 4 diodes in it, but Gottlieb does things differently. One of the 4 switches is actually triggered in 10 different places on the playfield ! So there are ten parallel leaf switches that feed a single diode in the diode bank. Two of the other three dead "switches" had multiple triggers too.
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The previous owner had tried to fix this - the manual had been annotated.
It transpired that the mpu connector, which was a corroded shambles, had also been pinned in the wrong order. The return from the dead column had been wrongly inserted into an unused strobe line.
Anyway, that is fixed now. Everything seems to work. When I have finished and I know the game is solid and 100% functional, I may have a go at rebuilding the original boards to see if I can get them going reliably.
Replaced a couple of missing rubbers and finally had a couple of proper games. It is hideously sloppy and slow. Every link has masses of play in it. But repairing stuff like this is the most satisfying thing for me.
Will be good to see how she plays when I have rebuilt the mechs. Looking to replace the worn moving parts in
5x flippers
3x pops - unfortunately these have wpc style hard-wired lamps you need to de-solder
1x slingshot
1x saucer kickout
Will replace the high voltage switches
Eos
Flipper
Pops (maybe, If they are too far gone)
When is a slingshot not a slingshot ? When it is in a Gottlieb. The lower playfield of this game has some remarkable similarities with Paragon. Weird lower left pop bumper (removed from Genie to assess wear), two lower right flippers, asymmetric slingshots. But with the Genie, the right slingshot has no mech in it, it is fake ...
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Some inserts are dished, so a playfield protector will deal with that. The one in my Paragon works a treat
This pop bumper works, but is very worn ....
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